


What My Heart Yearns For Now

by MagicaDraconia16



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, First Dance, Fluff, Insecurity, M/M, Misunderstandings, Tony Stark Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:42:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25319989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicaDraconia16/pseuds/MagicaDraconia16
Summary: Choosing a song for the first dance as husband and husband can be surprisingly difficult, especially when it uncovers unexpected emotional pitfalls.
Relationships: Jarvis (Iron Man movies) & Tony Stark, Phil Coulson/Tony Stark
Comments: 3
Kudos: 69





	What My Heart Yearns For Now

**Author's Note:**

> "I Will Always Love You" referenced here is Dolly Parton's original version. 
> 
> Title is from the song 'Love and Pride' by King.

The fight over the first dance almost caused them to cancel the wedding entirely.

Not the choice of song for it, although no doubt that would have come up soon enough, but whether to have one at all. Tony was all for it but Phil had proved surprisingly reticent.

“We don’t need one, Stark,” he had barked finally. “Isn’t the regular dancing good enough for you? You need to be even _more_ in the spotlight?”

Tony had gaped at his fiancé for a moment, before snapping his mouth closed and straightening his spine. “Fine,” he said, stiffly. “If you’re that much against any attention being paid to you, _Coulson_ , then I guess you shouldn’t have proposed, should you?” And he’d spun around and stalked out of the room before Phil could give him any answer at all, let alone the agreement he was afraid was coming.

He hid himself away in his workshop, ordering JARVIS to lock it all down and temporarily remove Phil’s access codes.

“If I may, sir,” the AI began, carefully, “I believe that Agent Coulson is unused to being the centre of attention due to the nature of his work.”

“Oh, please,” Tony scoffed, throwing a wrench across the workshop. Dum-E gave a cheerful beep and trundled after it. “He stepped into the limelight as soon as he started dating me. This isn’t news to him, JARVIS. He just… doesn’t want people to see him dancing with me.” His shoulders slumped. He didn’t want to admit it, but he hated outright lying to himself.

Dum-E gave a puzzled trill and nudged him in the arm with the retrieved wrench. Tony sighed but patted the bot on his strut. “Yeah, good boy,” he murmured, taking the tool back.

“Sir, Agent Coulson has discovered that his access code is no longer valid,” JARVIS informed him. “He is requesting permission to enter.”

Tony made a sound reminiscent of a game show buzzer. “Denied,” he said. “C’mon, JARVIS, you should know better than to mention that this soon after I’ve ordered a blackout.”

“My apologies, sir. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“You’re rolling your eyes at me.” Tony pointed threateningly at one of the nearby cameras. “I know you don’t have them, but you’re doing it anyway. I don’t have to put up with this kind of sass. I should donate you to the nearest Chick-Fil-A.”

JARVIS sighed. “Oh, the horror,” he deadpanned.

Tony gave a snort of amusement, but the feeling was fleeting and quickly faded again. “Why doesn’t he want to dance with me?” he asked, quietly. “It’s not like I’d step on his toes, or embarrass him by tripping us up, or anything.”

“I’m sure that is not the reason Agent Coulson is against the matter, sir,” said JARVIS gently. “From what I have observed of his actions towards you, he is very fond of you.”

“Fond.” Tony huffed in disgust. “Yeah, that’s a ringing endorsement there, bud. _So_ many epics have been composed about people being _fond_ of each other!”

There was an extremely pointed silence.

Tony winced, briefly considered playing the “I am your creator” card, rapidly calculated his chances of ever getting drinkable coffee anywhere in the Tower ever again and hastily backtracked.

“No, nope, you’re right, fond is good. Fond is excellent,” he said. “I’m sure Coulson is. Fond, that is. I mean, of me. As am I. Fond. Er, of him, I mean. Oh, God, JARVIS, just shoot me…”

“I’m sure that won’t be necessary, sir,” JARVIS said, sounding as amused as an AI could be. And he was one of Tony’s, so that was pretty damn amused. Tony winced again and hung his head in chagrin.

It was just… This was the first fight he and Phil had ever had. They hadn’t even really decided to start dating – after all, threatening to taser a man with a pacemaker was not a good starting point – but Phil had, surprisingly, come back after his little jaunt to New Mexico, and they’d sat and talked for hours, and then they’d kept on meeting up and talking for hours until, somehow, they’d just… been dating.

It had been quite a surprise to realise, especially since he’d thought he and Pepper were dancing around something. But he and Phil were apparently the epitome of ‘opposites attract’. Their jagged edges had just slid right in next to each other and completed them both.

Which just made it all the more depressing now that Phil didn’t appear to want to have a special dance at their own wedding. He couldn’t be _that_ much against making their relationship official; if he was, surely he wouldn’t have proposed in the first place. Things had been kept relatively quiet up until that point – or as quiet as Tony’s life ever got – but Phil had done it after an Avengers crisis, getting down on one knee in front of the Iron Man suit for the entire team, clean-up crew and worldwide news cameras to see.

“It just doesn’t _fit_ ,” Tony burst out, banging a clenched fist onto the table in front of him. Dum-E whirred uncertainly, and rocked back and forth on his wheels. “Sorry, Dum-E,” he apologised, patting the bot’s metal arm. “But I just… I don’t _understand_! Do you think Phil is _embarrassed_ to be seen with me like that?” he asked JARVIS, plaintively. “He never has been before.”

“I’m positive that is not the case, sir,” said JARVIS, gently. “Perhaps if you allowed Agent Coulson access again, he could explain the matter to you.”

Tony gave a bitter snort. “I’m not sure he’d want to talk with me at the moment,” he muttered. “Yell at me, maybe.”

Instead of answering out loud, JARVIS switched on one of the holographic screens just beside him. It showed the view from the security camera right outside the entrance to Tony’s workshop. Phil was sitting on the floor, resting his back against the glass door, resting his arms on his drawn-up knees. He had his head tilted back against the door, his eyes closed.

“What—?” Tony wondered, but before he could get any further, JARVIS allowed the volume to creep up.

_…My lonely heart calls… Oh, I want to dance with somebody. I wanna feel the heat with somebody. Yeah, I wanna dance with somebody. With somebody who loves me…_

Tony’s mouth fell open. “Is Phil listening to _Whitney Houston_?!” he demanded.

“How clever of you to recognise her, sir,” said JARVIS. “Indeed he is. I believe Agent Coulson is quite fond of Ms Houston’s music.”

Tony squinted suspiciously at a nearby camera, as he’d never heard Phil even _mention_ her before, but the proof certainly appeared to be playing out in the corridor.

He wasn’t certain that he wanted to hear what Phil had to say. He most _definitely_ didn’t want to hear about whatever shortcoming it was that had caused Phil to erupt like that. And yet…

He didn’t want to sit here, locked in his workshop, alone and mentally tying himself up in knots, until his insecurities strangled him. He and Phil had never been unable to talk to each other before, and he didn’t like the idea that this might be the thing that smothered their communication and caused an unassailable silence to sprout between them.

Eventually, he sighed and stood up. “Okay, JARVIS, you win,” he conceded as he crossed to the door. “Lift the blackout.”

“Lifting it now,” JARVIS agreed.

Phil abruptly straightened up as the door gave a gentle click behind him. He looked over his shoulder at it, and the look of misery in his eyes caused an echoing ache in the middle of Tony’s chest.

Swallowing the lump in his throat, Tony pulled open the workshop door and gazed at Phil, who scrambled to his feet, much less gracelessly than he usually was. Of course, he didn’t usually sit on the floor, either.

“I’m sorry,” Phil blurted before Tony could even open his mouth to say anything. “Tony, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean what I said.”

“But you still said it,” Tony pointed out, folding his arms across his chest. “You said it because you don’t want to dance with me.”

Phil took a cautious step closer, his hands coming up to hover above Tony’s shoulders, unsure whether he’d be allowed to touch anymore. “Oh, Tony,” he said, softly. “That wasn’t it. That wasn’t it _at all_ , and I’m _so_ sorry that I made you think it was.” His hands finally landed on Tony, and they instantly slid down and curled around Tony’s bicep.

“Then what was it?” asked Tony, still not entirely sure he wanted to hear the answer.

What he wasn’t expecting was for Phil to suddenly look embarrassed, with a tinge of guilt. “I’m… jealous,” the man admitted. A blush was rising in his cheeks. He didn’t even appear to be fighting it down.

It only deepened Tony’s confusion. “Jealous? Of what?” he asked.

Phil sighed, and squeezed Tony’s arms. “Of everyone,” he said, finally. “Tony, we haven’t even danced together yet, and for the first time – ever – to be in front of all those people, even if they are our friends? I don’t – didn’t – want them to be privy to what would be a special, intimate moment for us.”

“Oh,” Tony mouthed. He hadn’t thought of that. It had never even crossed his mind as something to be crossed _off_. His and Phil’s relationship had happened so organically that he’d never even considered that there were some things they hadn’t done yet. He cleared his throat and dropped his arms, allowing his hands to rest on Phil’s hips. “Well,” he said, his voice unconsciously dropping to a huskier note, “I suppose we could always… practice first.”

Phil smiled at him, a tentative, hopeful thing. “Practice does make perfect,” he agreed.

“JARVIS, music!” Tony ordered.

JARVIS didn’t respond, but the soft notes of a guitar slowly became audible.

Tony was about to make a crack about it being yet another of Whitney Houston’s songs – even if he thought this particular version had been around long before her – but Phil was already drawing him closer, and Tony didn’t want to spoil this moment.

Instead, his own hands slid around to link against the small of Phil’s back, even as Phil’s arms slid around and down as well. Tony rested his head on Phil’s shoulder, nose pressed against his collarbone, as they began swaying gently.

“You were right,” he admitted, softly, as JARVIS raised the vocal level just in time for the chorus to start. “This wasn’t something to be done for the first time in front of everyone.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t explain myself better,” Phil replied, tilting his own head down to rest on top of Tony’s. “I didn’t mean to hurt you like that.”

“So the wedding’s still on?” Tony inwardly winced at the plaintiveness in his voice. He hadn’t meant to let slip to Phil just how convinced he was that Phil would get fed up of him for whatever reason and call the whole thing off.

Phil squeezed him tighter, just as the chorus swelled again. _And I-I-I… will always… love you…_ “It was never off,” he murmured. “There’s no chance I’m letting you escape now.”

Tony couldn’t help but kiss him at that, which led to a completely _different_ kind of dancing. JARVIS kept the song on repeat.

* * *

The song they unanimously decided on for the first dance was, of course, ‘I Want To Dance With Somebody’. They did _not_ explain why.


End file.
